Pretty Little Liar
by iiLadyAmore
Summary: What happens when Hermione isn't who everyone thought thinks she is? After Her parents die, she goes to live with her Uncle, which also changes her life..forever


_Flames shot high, turning the night lurid with carnival lights. The sparks were taking the place of stars. The century-old inn was a silhouette fronting hell, as everything Hermione knew was consumed in fire. Two figures broke from the smashed front door and ran toward the woods where she stood, their nightclothes smeared with soot, their faces white with terror. The person, who pushed them out, who was none other than Peter Granger himself, disappeared once more inside just as another window exploded._

_Hermione felt a tug on her arm. Her mother, Jean, stood panting beside her._

_"I put Aunt Persia in my car. Where is your father?" Now that she stood alone with her daughter, her voice rose high in panic._

_"He went back in," Hermione answered, her words roughened by smoke and tears._

_"Peter!" Jean started toward the building and Hermione grabbed her and held on tight. _

_"No! You can't both be in there. I can't take it."_

_"But I need to be beside him," Jean begged. She fought to get away and ran back inside the inn, ignoring her daughter's cries and protests._

_"Mom!" Hermione cried as the fire roared its victory; then, with a crack as if a giant's spine hadsnapped, a central beam gave way, and the roof collapsed in a peacock tail of sparks and flame. _

_"Daddy!" Hermione screamed._

_But it was too late. _

Hermione sat upright in her bed screaming, sweat soaking her t-shirt. Silently waiting for her breathing to slow down to normal once again, she let her head fall into her hands. Rubbing her eyes, she didn't notice Tom walking in until she felt her bed deepen. She looked up to find the concerned look on her cousin's face.

"I'm alright Tommy. No need to worry."

"You had the nightmare again didn't you?"

"Wha..what makes you think that? It was just a bad dream…Nothing serious." Hermione stumbled across her words. The last thing she needed right now was Tommy worrying about her. Things were already weird around the manor with her presence now known by his follower's. She didn't want the great _Voldemort_ to seem vulnerable any more than he already did. Tommy gave her a knowing smile and ran his hand through her tangled brown curls.

"You were screamed loud enough I heard you down the hall, my pet. There's no need to hide it. I know everything is weird now. With you parent's gone in the fire, moving to live with me, having people find out the truth. It's a lot to deal with. It's alright to feel pain."

Hermione sighed. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to feel.

"Please?". he asked. "Talk to me Hermione. She was my family too, the last I had."

"I don't really want to. I just…don't."

"Okay, I just want to know what you're thinking."

"I'm not thinking about anything."

Tommy's face split into a small smile. "Hermione, you're always thinking. Please, just talk to me. A little. For my sake?"

Those oddly human iron-grey eyes starring from that face broke her.

"Fine." She said. "The truth is, I've been thinking about the book of Job."

"Job?"

"Job." She confirmed unhelpfully.

"Well, what have you been thinking about, when you think of job?" he replied, his voice oozing with patience, warning her, he wasn't a man who gave up.

She rolled her shoulder's, trying to work out the knot of tension she had worked up sometime between the nightmare and sitting here with Tom.

"Sit by me", he urged. "Tell me."

She sat down at the end of her bed. She didn't want to sit too close, and she definitely didn't want to see those grey eyes. "You know I wasn't raised with religion", she said "except for the vague pseudopagansim of my grandparents. So when I was thirteen I decided to read the bible, mostly to see what all the hubbub was about. I guess I became slightly obsessed. I thought it was a great story. I like how it highlighted the character Jehovah: He of the sound and the fury. But I never understood how anyone, in any historical time period, could have found comfort in such a myth."

She paused, trying to figure out what she was going to say next. Tommy responded by scootching across the bed. He wasn't going to make this easy.

"And now…" he prompted.

"And now…now I get it. I get what it feels like to cry out like that…into oblivion."

"Well you've lost a lot Hermione. Asking why is natural."

"Yeah, but what's the point Tommy?" she demanded, her voice suddenly heated. "Job, at least, got something. It was a distinctly unsatisfying, nonanswer to his question, but it was _something._ The whirlwind's response to him might have sucked, but it _spoke_. The very act of speech implied that this tempest that had brought such tragedy to Jobs life had something behind it. In other words, that voice spoke of intent, cementing the idea that things happened for a reason, even if those reasons were incomprehensible to Job. But when I rage into the whirlwind? I get bubkes, Tommy. When I grieve, my tears are met with silence; and when I rage, apparently my enemy's merely laugh and plan a new set of atrocities."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I need to stop questioning. I need to stop thinking. I need to _act_. And if that means being Hermione Granger isn't good enough, that's fine. I can change-until I'm smart enough, strong enough, and ruthless enough to stop them."

Her voice, gone loud, rolled through the hotel room, a little vehement and strained even to her own ears. But she meant every word. _I'm so tired of being weak_, she thought, feeling her fists clench as a wave of pain and anger threatened her cool façade. Instead of confronting her Iike she expected, Tommy responded by shifting onto his side.

"Can you scratch right behind my shoulder blade?" he asked, to her surprise.

"What?"

"Can you scratch behind my shoulder blade? It's been itching for a while, even before I shifted. I was hoping you could scratch it for me."

She stared down at the man sitting beside her, confused. Normally he was the first to yell at her when she tried to go all Battle Hermione. Then she shrugged and started scratching, her nails digging harder into his side. Her fingers slowed, then stopped. He reacted to the sensation of scratching with an ear flicked toward Hermoine and a gray eye rolled back to give her an "_oh hell no"_ look, so I started scratching again.

Finally, he grunted. "Stop."

He stood up and shook himself, a cloud of black fur from his robe falling onto my previously pristine bedspread. "That was great. Now, we talk for real."

Hermione frowned. She'd really thought he was going to let her be…

"You're angry", he said

A loud snort was her only reply.

"But you can't just be feeling anger?" Tom prodded

"No," Hermione replied. "I'm not. In fact, I'm pushing the anger away. I just want to act, Tommy. Rage and grief have never gotten me anywhere."

"So is that what you want? Revenge?"

She laughed, but it was a dry, pained sound. "Yes, Tommy! I really, _really_ want revenge", she whispered finally, in a voice so cold and intent it could have been Voldemort himself speaking.

Tom moved around so that he was facing Hermione, one leg hanging off the bed awkwardly so that he was far enough forward to look her in the face.

"What's going on, Hermione?" he asked, as if she hadn't just said exactly what she felt.

"I told you", she replied petulantly.

"No, you're talking about what you want, but you haven't said anything about how you really feel. That's what worries me."

She kept staring straight ahead at the flat-screen TV across from her, refusing to meet her cousin's eyes. But she could feel the soft pant of his breath swirling the hair hanging about her face. She knew he wasn't going to stop, not until he'd gotten whatever it was he wanted from her.

"I just feel… like I'm past feeling", was what she finally came up with.

"Hmm", was the man's only response.

"'Hmm what?'" Hermione demanded, when she realized that was all she was getting.

"I don't like the idea of you not feeling"

"Well, it makes sense to me, Tommy. Since all I get to feel recently seems to be bad things. So I'd rather just work. Be active. Stop thinking and do stuff."

Tom took his time thinking through what she'd said. "Is it working?" he asked finally.

"Is what working?"

"Not feeling."

"Yes. I think so. I don't know. I feel numb. Numb is good."

"But numbs a feeling. You've had a lot of shocks recently, Hermione. You can't expect yourself to recover quickly…"

"This isn't about me, Tommy. It's about my mother, and father. I tried grieving, and I tried getting angry, but nothing works. They're still dead, and whoever killed them is still out there. My hurting is just… a weakness and I need to be strong."

"Is feeling hurt weak?"

"Of course it is, Tommy. I don't see you running around crying. And people fear you; do what you tell them to do.

"And is that what you want? People to fear you?"

"Yes. No. I don't know!" At this point, Hermione was nearly shouting, she was so frustrated. Why couldn't he just understand her, and leave her be.

"The Hermione Granger I knew wouldn't want people to fear her", was all he said, calm in the face of her frustration.

"Well, I let grief get the best of me before. And look what it got me. That Hermione gets stomped on. A lot. It's not much good being that Hermione."

"So what would the new Hermione be like?"

"She wouldn't take shit. She'd strike first. She'd have the strength to do what needed to be done, and her friends wouldn't die because of her."

"That sounds like quite an extreme Hermione."

"Stop mocking me, Tommy."

"I'm not mocking you. I just want you to hear yourself; hear what you're saying."

"What's wrong with it? It's true."

"It's a version of the truth, yes. But it's not the whole truth, or the only truth. You're forgetting that there are all types of strengths, and when we embrace new ways of being, we have to let other ways of being go." He said, the honesty oozing out of his tone.

"Well, I really want to embrace some strength, Tommy. I'm tired of being powerless."

"Who says you're powerless?"

"Bad guys…"

"So, the bad guys think you're powerless."

"Exactly."

"But how do they define power?"

"I know what you're doing, Tommy. Stop trying to Dr. Phil me."

"I'm not entirely sure who that is, Hermione. Like I said, I want you to think through what you're saying. Tell me what defines as power."

"Ruthlessness. Cunning. Strength of magic…"

"And you want to become all these things?"

"Yes, Tommy! I do! Jesus, what do you want from me? Do you want me to be somebody who keeps getting her ass kicked, and her friends killed?"

"Is that all that's happened in these past months?"

"I swear to the gods that if you answer one more of my questions with a question, I am going to go all Tyson and bite your damned ear off…" Frustration was welling up inside as the pinpricks of angry tears stung the corners of her eyes.

"What would your father have to say to your becoming ruthless, and cunning, and—"

Hermione's head whipped around toward Tom as she felt the tears overflow her eyes. "Don't you dare bring up my father, you bastard!" she choked, as hot rivulets ran down her cheeks. Tom's only response was to lean forward and gently wipe tears from her face. And, just as he knew it would, his gentle touch broke her. After all, she always fucking cried on him, as the manipulative little shit knew full well.

Within seconds she found herself sobbing, almost hysterically, as all the pent-up anger and sadness and frustration came pouring out of her. Tom dragged himself forward a bit, the leg hanging off the bed following him like a dead thing, so that she could bury her head in his neck.

"That's it," his gruff dog-voice murmured. "Let it out."

She buried her face deeper into his wiry fur robe, beginning to shake as an overwhelming sense of loneliness crashed over her. _Your mother is dead and your father is dead_, came an insidious whisper through her head. _Soon you will be all alone… more alone than you ever thought possible_. Suddenly overwhelmingly terrified, Hermione began to shake, as the faces of every loved one she could lose began to flash before her.

"Hermione? Honey?" Tommy asked his voice gentle but also betraying a whisper of worry.

She didn't think he'd intended for her to let go quite so much.

"They're all going to leave," she said through her sobs, although she was so snotty and incoherent it came out sounding like,

"Der ah gonna leab," and Tom shook his head.

"Sorry?" he asked.

Her shaking increased, alarming even to herself, and she asked for the one thing she knew would comfort her, not worrying about the fact this was Tommy. Hermione just needed to know she wasn't alone.

_Hold me_, she thought. "Hoad be," is what she asked.

As if she'd depressed a button her crying stopped, but Tommy wasn't going to let up on her. She felt his large hand wrap itself around her hair, again knotting it roughly at the nape of her neck. He tugged her head back to meet her brown eyes with his iron-gray gaze.

"I know it hurts, honey. I know you want to bury everything. But you have to keep feeling, Hermione. This is important. _You have to keep feeling_."

Hermione stared into his strong face, trembling at the depth of emotion she saw swirling in his eyes. She thought of his long life, and the terrible things she knew he'd seen, and done.

"Do you still feel?" she managed to choke out finally around the knot that had developed in her next words, which rumbled through his chest into her own. It would be years later that she fully understand everything he was telling her. But, at that moment, she understood enough.

"Of course, Hermione. It's the only thing that keeps us human." _What has happened to my beautiful strong Hermione Jane? _Tom thought as he looked into her eyes. He has watched over the last three months what the death of her parents had done to her. He wanted to hold her, calm her, and never let go. _It can never be like that _his conscience reminded him. They were family yes, and he would protect her as if she was his daughter, but they were from different worlds. She was Potter's best friend, he had sworn to kill Potter. There was no way around it. What was worse, she had gone six years letting everyone believe she was a muggle-born, when she was a pureblood, let alone the fact that they were family.

Tom sat up straight and wiped the hair from Hermione's eyes. "Get some rest my pet." He said softly. He left the room with a reassuring squeeze against Hermione. He had gotten the answers he wanted, a brief glance at what was going on inside her mind and he found himself deeply disturbed. Hermione's soul had been beautiful, a slight naïve yet intelligent air about her. She was everything he had lost, and he found himself feeling slightly powerless for the first time since he was a child. There was so little he could do for his Hermione Jane Granger.


End file.
